Background

She was born in Denver, Colorado, the daughter of Joyce and Ralph Simpson. Her musical skills were encouraged by both parents in her younger years. Her mother is a former singer (she was signed to Motown as a teenager and opened for Stevie Wonder and Al Green) and is now her stylist. Her father is a former NBA basketball player. She has an older brother named J'On. According to a DNA analysis, she descends from the Mende people of Sierra Leone, the Kru people of Liberia and the Fula people of Guinea-Bissau.

After her parents divorced, Simpson's mother moved the family to Atlanta, Georgia when she was thirteen. Simpson had taken up a succession of musical instruments throughout her schooling in Denver, but her interest in the guitar while attending the Savannah College of Art and Design, in Savannah, led to a personal revelation about songwriting and performing. "When I started tapping into my own sensitivity, I started to understand people better. It was a direct result of writing songs", she said at the press release of her debut album, Acoustic Soul.

Co-founding the Atlanta-based independent music collective Groovement EarthShare (Groovement was the collective artists' name and EarthShare was their independent label name), her one-song turn on a locally released compilation led to a second-stage gig at the 1998 Lilith Fair. In 1999, a Universal/Motown music scout spotted her and made an introduction to former Motown CEO Kedar Massenburg. Arie resides in Atlanta, Georgia.

Musical career

Arie released her debut album Acoustic Soul on March 27, 2001. The album was met with positive reviews and commercial success. "Acoustic Soul" debuted at number ten on the U.S. Billboard 200 and number three on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums. Within months, without the concentrated radio airplay that typically powers pop and rap albums, Acoustic Soul was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), selling 2,180,000 copies in the U.S. and 3,000,000 copies worldwide. The album was also certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry and platinum by Music Canada. The album was promoted with the release of the lead single "Video". "Video" attained commercial success peaking at forty seven on the US Billboard Hot 100 and becoming her highest charting song in the region to date. The album's second single "Brown Skin" failed to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but it became her highest charting single in the United Kingdom, peaking at number 29.

Arie performed a duet with rock singer-guitarist John Mellencamp on the song "Peaceful World" for his 2001 album Cuttin' Heads. While Arie and the album were nominated for seven Grammy awards in 2002, they won no awards, losing in five of seven categories to Alicia Keys. She closed the ceremony with a performance of her song "Video". Arie performed a duet with jazz singer Cassandra Wilson on the song "Just Another Parade" for her 2002 album Belly of the Sun.

Arie followed the success of her debut on September 24, 2002 with the release of Voyage to India. It debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of 109,000 copies and topped the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, with the RIAA certifying it Platinum. At the 2003 Grammy Awards, it won Best R&B Album, and the single "Little Things" won Best Urban/Alternative Performance. The song "Get It Together" was featured on many film soundtracks including Brown Sugar (2002) and Shark Tale (2004).

On September 12, 2005, Arie performed "Just 4 2day", a song written for her appearance on the debut of The Tyra Banks Show. She also performed "What About the Child", a song that did not air but was made available as a one-dollar Internet download to support child victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Arie is also featured on Stevie Wonder's album A Time to Love, released on October 18, 2005. Arie and Wonder duet on the title track "A Time to Love", written by Arie, which was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Three years earlier, their rendition of Mel Tormé's 1944 classic "The Christmas Song", recorded for the holiday TV commercial for retailer Target, had been nominated for the same category, making it the first song created and financed exclusively for a commercial to be nominated for a Grammy Award.

Arie's third studio album, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, was released on June 27, 2006. It gave Arie her first number-one spot on the Billboard 200 and was her second chart-topper on the R&B charts. This album was also the first number-one album for Motown in twelve years. Its first-week sales of 161,000 copies are Arie's best sales week to date and was certified gold in August 2006, selling 730,000 in US and 1,300,000 worldwide. "I Am Not My Hair", a collaboration with Akon, was the most successful release from Testimony: Vol. 1., reaching the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 at #97 and the UK Singles Chart at #65. On the April 16, 2007 episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show entitled "After Imus: Now What?", Arie guest-starred as a panelist. Arie performed a duet with singer Anthony David for his song "Words" for his 2008 album Acey Duecy.

Her next album, Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics was released on Tuesday, February 10, 2009. It debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and No. 2 on the R&B chart. Within this CD, Arie collaborated with such artists as Sezen Aksu, Keb Mo, Gramps Morgan and Musiq Soulchild to fulfill her self-proclaimed desire to "do projects with people who are making music that is meaningful, with a lot of integrity and a lot of sonic diversity". Arie also identified this CD as her first to write and sing songs without worrying about public opinion after a much-needed vacation to Hawaii. The album was her first produced and released after her departure from Motown to Universal Records. Arie performed "Video" with British singer Adele at the 2009 VH1 Divas. Arie is one of over 70 artists singing on "We Are the World: 25 for Haiti", a charity single in aid of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. Arie contributed vocals to "Imagine" for the 2010 Herbie Hancock album, The Imagine Project along with Seal, P!nk, Jeff Beck, Konono N°1, Oumou Sangare and others.

In the fall of 2010, she was a featured guest vocalist on Carlos Santana's version of The Beatles classic song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from his album Guitar Heaven. The song also features Yo-Yo Ma on cello.

In September 2012, she featured in a campaign called "30 Songs/30 Days" to support Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, a multi-platform media project inspired by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s book.

In March 2013, it was announced that Arie was working on her upcoming fifth studio album, Songversation, which was released on June 25, 2013. The first single of the album, "6th Avenue", was released on iTunes on November 4, 2012; it was produced by India Arie and Israeli musician Idan Raichel. The second single "Cocoa Butter" was released on iTunes on April 9, 2013.

Discography

Studio albums

Main article: India Arie discography

• 2001: Acoustic Soul
• 2002: Voyage to India
• 2006: Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship
• 2009: Testimony: Vol. 2, Love & Politics
• 2013: Songversation
• 2015: Christmas with Friends

Awards

Grammy Awards

The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Arie has won four awards from twenty-one nominations, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist. In 2002, she got the record of "Most Nominations in One Night Without Winning", with seven received nominations.

Year	Recipient/Nominated work	Award	Result
2002	India Arie	Best New Artist	Nominated
	Acoustic Soul	Album of the Year	Nominated
		Best R&B Album	Nominated
	"Video"	Record of the Year	Nominated
		Song of the Year	Nominated
		Best Female R&B Vocal Performance	Nominated
		Best R&B Song	Nominated
2003	"The Christmas Song"	Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals	Nominated
	"Little Things"	Best Urban/Alternative Performance	Won
	Voyage to India	Best R&B Album	Won
2006	"A Time to Love"	Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals	Nominated
2007	"I Am Not My Hair"	Best Female R&B Vocal Performance	Nominated
		Best R&B Song	Nominated
	Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationships	Best R&B Album	Nominated
2008	"Beautiful Flower"	Best R&B Song	Nominated
2009	"Words"	Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals	Nominated
2010	"Chocolate High"	Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals	Nominated
	Testimony Vol. 2, Love & Politics	Best R&B Album	Nominated
	"Pearls"	Best Urban/Alternative Performance	Won
2011	"Imagine"	Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals	Won
		Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals	Nominated

BET Awards

2002 - Best Female R&B Artist (Won)

2003 - Best Female R&B Artist (Won)

MTV Video Music Award

2001 - MTV2 Award for "Video" (Nominated)

Soul Train Music Awards

2003 - Best R&B/Soul Single, Female for "Little Things" (Nominated)

Tours

Headlining

• Voyage to World Tour (2002/03)
• Testimony Tour (2006/10)
• Songversation Tour (2013/14)

Opening act

• Lovers Rock Tour (2001)

Filmography

List of television and film credits

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2003	American Dreams	Nina Simone	"Act of Contrition" (Season 1, Episode 16)
2003	The Bernie Mac Show	Herself	"Raging Election" (Season 2, Episode 13)
2004	Blue's Clues	Herself	"Bluestock" (Season 6, Episode 9)
2006	One on One	Herself	"I Love L.A.: Part 1" (Season 5, Episode 21)
2009	Pastor Brown	Lateefah	Debut film
2015	Being Mary Jane	Herself	"Life in the Sand" (Season 2, Episode 9)

Theater

In 2009, India Arie portrayed Nina Simone in a staged reading at the Roundabout Theatre Company of the upcoming Broadway musical "Soul Doctor", about the life of Shlomo Carlebach written by Daniel Wise.

[ Source: Wikipedia ]